Hartford Foundation Celebrates Giving

It was one big mutual admiration society at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving's annual Celebration of Giving at the Hartford Marriott Downtown Thursday.

Foundation supporters celebrated the many non-profits that do for others with help from foundation funds and the beneficiaries lauded the foundation for making good works possible.

""We would be lost without the foundation," said My Sisters Place executive director and CEO Diane Paige' Blondet, whose agency has been a long time recipient of foundation support. "The foundation is our lifeline," she said about the aid the agency receives to help
homeless women and their children. "We need all the support we can get."

Also among those agencies celebrating the foundation's altruism were Matt Poland, chief operating officer at the Hartford Public Library, one of those that benefited from the foundations 85th anniversary Library Project underwriting advanced technology for several dozen Hartford-area libraries. Also on hand was former Hartford mayor Eddie Perez, who is in the midst of appealing his felony conviction on bribery and related charges, but is still regular at Hartford events.,

"This is my community, this is my Hartford," said Perez as a line of supporters waited to shake his hand. "I am still happy to help out when I can."

About 400 business leaders, supporters, non-profit representatives attended the event, simultaneous lamenting the additional pressure to deliver services in a desperate economy and thanking their lucky stars that the foundation maintains its support.

For Foodshare's president and CEO Gloria McAdam, it was not only a chance to thank the foundation but also a chance to pitch what Foodshare does, providing food assistance to others.

"We are thrilled to be able to talk about what we do," said McAdam, who was one of the featured speakers at the program. "But we are not just about handing a client a bag of food," she said. "We are using a foundation grant to provide help to our clients get a handle on their lives."